NXP on route to automotive future

SAN FRANCISCO--The car is the next frontier in consumer electronics, going from mode of transportation to personalized mobile information hub.

NXP has made automotive a priority, striving to enable all electronic communication to, from and within the vehicle ¬ reliably, securely, and efficiently.

Speaking to NXP executive vice president Kurt Sievers at CES 2013, EE Times learned more about the firm’s plans for the burgeoning automotive space, from IC solutions for telematics, 802.11p automotive wireless, magnetoresistive sensors, small-signal discretes, solid state lighting drivers and NFC applications.

The push comes under NXP’s vision of “secure connections for a smarter world,” a world in which cars will be able to “talk” to people, and to each other, giving warnings to other vehicles and interacting seamlessly with infrastructure like traffic lights.

Sievers said he was proud to be showing off NXP’s automotive products in Nevada, a state that was the first to allow autonomous vehicles and a testing ground for Google’s self-driving car. “NXP is one of the companies enabling the progress,” said Sievers.

While it’s clear that automated driving won’t take over our main roads fully for a long time to come, Sievers said studies had shown that a penetration of just 15-20 percent of cars with those features would be enough to make the road a significantly safer place.

Also, for those concerned that connected cars could be hacked, Sievers said NXP was putting a lot of effort into securing them with the same crypto-technology already used in payment cards and passports.

How great would that be to not worry about a crash with other drivers? I may take some of the skill out of driving but I would bet that the majority of drivers would rather have it than not.
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The automotive market segment is too large to ignore! With the rise in consumer devices it was only a matter of time before the car would become the next digital entertainment vehicle (pun intended). I have used GPS for navigation and found it works reasonably well with some notable exceptions; I wonder how well full driver assist systems will work and what will it take to make them both safe and secure.

I think it's all about business. They know that these system aren't fully effective if not installed on all vehicles. The point is every driver has his own skill level. Implying this devices will gradually lower this level. From one hand it can be much more safer at once. But in 5 years for example, this system is out of order, and drivers can really drive by themselves. They've used to constant assistance. In a whole, I'm against this "improvements" backpacker travel insurance